Are XQD cards obsolete?

Without our precious memory cards, our visual storytelling is non-existent. We all rely on this miracles of photography to keep our images safe and bring them to life on our desktops, laptops or tablets. If you are like you me, XQD cards are the lifes blood of the camera. These roughly 1 inch x 1.5 inche cards hold all our ideas and concepts that we oftern go to great lengths to capture. When Lexar decided to discontinue making XQD cards, needless to say, I was a bit concerned. Many of those cards now are going for quite a bit of money as suppliers realize they are in demand.

Then I discovered that there might be hope when I heard that individuals from Lexar left to form Prograde Digital and were working on a new replacement potential for the XQD. I wrote the their customer service and they were great in responding. Here is what they noted about the upcoming technology called CFexpress:

“Thank you for your inquiry. Please be advise ProGrade Digital recently organized an event at NAB as a technology demonstration rather than a product announcement. Our goal was to showcase ProGrade Digital’s successful implementation of the world’s first 1TB memory card compliant with the next generation CFexpress 1.0 standard.

We are actively engaged with Nikon and other camera manufacturers for firmware testing and compatibility for XQD card slots upgraded to accommodate the CFexpress format. We are hopefully optimistic to see CFexpress compatible cameras available in the 1st Quarter of 2019. Ultimately, firmware development and new model announcements entirely in the hands of camera manufacturers beyond the control of ProGrade Digital. We do not anticipate release of ProGrade Digital CFexpress cards until device manufacturers embrace the format”

This card has tremendous potential and I challenge camera manufacturers to adopt this new technology sooner versus later. In my humble opinion it would only enhance our ability to capture the photographs we want with the state of the art equipment camera manufacturers already produce. Now, of course there are politics with these types of things, but one can dream.